Longest novel

In Search of the Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, is a gigantic novel, spanning seven volumes. It’s reckoned to be the “longest” novel ever written. No, dear readers, I haven’t read it myself yet. I have been listening to Alain De Botton’s audiobook, the creator of the foundation and channel “School of Life”.

In Alain De Botton’s <<How Proust can change your life>> he talks about Marcel’s book extensively as well real life events. The book (Alain’s) also captures the reader’s aggression to “what’s the point?” where reader feel devoid of any finale or solving a mystery or a moral conclusion. There was even a competition held to summarize Proust’s work in 15 seconds. Marcel’s brother Robert says, unfortunately, it can only be read when someone has a fracture or can’t do anything else and that was the 20th century. I wonder if people could really read it in the 21st century, maybe only as a challenge. The publishers who read the manuscripts were angry, the first 17 pages of the book, he describes how he has trouble sleeping and insomnia and digresses. All topics are digressed, that’s why it his huge monumental work. There are. more interesting caveats in the book, it talks about a sofa in a living room, that line is one of the biggest lines in the book that’s 5 meters long. It talks about how that sofa was gift and has the memory of the painter who was a friend who died, whose soft tender memory lives on… and so on, could be a good patience building exercise.Reading any classic or watching any intriguing movie or series is like entering a great conversation.

Marcel Proust’s father Dr Adrian Proust was a medical professional, especially known to the common public in the field of hygiene, he wrote articles about sanitation and was called upon by different countries to help with the cholera outbreak, health and sanitation. He had re-introduced the concept of quarantine for managing of cholera. He was awarded a title for his service by the French government. He condemned corsets, an inner-wear for women, popular in the 19th century, as it harmed the development of the spine, which he illustrated in his book Elements of Hygiene.

I have often wondered, how could people write autobiographies, decide which parts are important and which parts are not, wouldn’t it be hard to sum up all your life in just 200 pages? As a teenager, I used to wonder on some days, if this day would ever make it in my biography, if I ever chose to write one, the one in which I currently live and breathe. And if I ever to write narrate on everything that ever happened to me, the book would be as long as Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

Prost!
Calra